Polymers synthesized by step growth polymerizations find notable applications in textiles, the automobile industry, coatings and so on. The industrial applications mainly depend on the chemical nature of the starting components and on the industrial process. Nevertheless, for more specific applications, many of these polymers are limited in scope because of the lack of functionalities on the backbone for further modification and tailoring.
Bisphenols are an important class of difunctional monomers which find applications in the preparation of a host of high performance polymers such as polycarbonates, polyesters, polyether sulfones, polyether ether ketones, epoxy resins, etc. US Patent Application Publication No. 20070191606 discloses novel 2,2-bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)alkylonium salts of formula (1):
wherein n=1 to 37, X=Cl, Br, BF4, OTf, or NTf2, M=trialkylphosphonium, triarylphosphonium, triaryl-alkylphosphonium, ammonium or substituted cylic amidinium radical selected from the group containing pyrrole, imidazole, thiazole, oxazole, pyridine, pyrimidine, quinoline, isoquiniline, indole, purine, benzimidazole, benzothiaozole, benzoxazole, pyrazine, quinoxaline, quinozoline, acridine, phenazine, imidazopyridine and dipyridyl.
It is believed that the potential applications of polymers could be greatly broadened with the incorporation of pendent groups onto the polymer backbone. Towards this end, difunctional monomers containing pendent reactive groups which are compatible under polymerization conditions are highly desirable. The introduction of pendent reactive functional groups into these polymers via utilization of bisphenols containing appropriate functional groups is of great interest as pendent functional groups offer the possibility of synthesis of graft copolymers comprising polycondensate and polyvinyl segments. Such graft copolymers are potentially useful as blend compatibilizers and so on.
Therefore there is a need in the art to provide more monomers based on bisphenols with pendent reactive functional groups, so that these can afford preparation of high performance polymers.